Trump slams Ebdon after win over Ding

By Eurosport

Share

Tweet

Last update The 12/07/2012 at 23:07 - Published on 12/07/2012 at 22:52

By Eurosport - The 12/07/2012 at 23:07

Judd Trump berated Peter Ebdon's notorious slow play after his fellow Englishman ground out a turgid 5-4 win over Ding Junhui after almost five hours of play in the Australian Goldfields Open second round.

Former UK holder Ding wrapped up a 5-0 win over Alan McManus in one hour and 20 minutes in Bendigo 24 hours earlier, but became bogged down in a wretched encounter with the methodical 2002 world champion, whose average time of over 30 seconds between shots saw the average frame run to an agonising 32 minutes. The match officially concluded in four hours and 50 minutes with Ebdon about the only man left celebrating.

Ebdon's delaying tactics seemed to have a detrimental effect on the form of the Australian player Neil Robertson, who lost 5-1 to Mark Davis after being forced to start his match two hours late with Ebdon upsetting not only Ding with his trademark strategy.

World number two Trump, who has opted against playing in Australia alongside Ronnie O'Sullivan, John Higgins and Mark Williams, is astonished that Ebdon is allowed to play so slowly.

"How Peter Ebdon is allowed to play that slow is a joke," said Trump on Twitter.

Ding contributed a knock of 129 in the third frame, but was eventually suffocated as the balls tended to drift awkwardly which suited Ebdon's bid to make the frames scruffy.

Ebdon eventually strangled Ding with a run of 70 in the final frame. He will face Shaun Murphy in the quarter-finals. 2010 world champion Robertson made an impressive start to his match with new Six-Red world champion Davis.

He won the opener with a break of 88, but a kick on a black appeared to throw Robertson as he broke down when well poised on 39 in the second frame.

Davis provided 46, 67, 65, 81 and 61 on his way to a comfortable win.

"Overall, I'm really disappointed, but Mark handled the late start better than I did. It is always difficult starting at 9.30pm or 10pm," said Robertson.

"I felt a bit flat after the first frame. To Mark's credit, I thought he played well and deserved to win."

Martin Gould will meet Davis courtesy of a 5-4 win over Chinese qualifier Cao Yupeng, who made the highest break of the tournament with a 143 in defeat.

Barry Hawkins eked out a 5-2 win over Matthew Stevens by holing a re-spotted black off its spot with both men struggling for momentum.

Matthew Selt continued his run with a 5-3 win over Ryan Day while Jamie Burnett could not emulate the form that accounted for the world number one Mark Selby on Wednesday as he lost 5-1 to Marco Fu, who meets Stephen Lee in the last eight.